Rafael Canogar

RAFAEL CANOGAR (Toledo, 1935).
"P-1- 79", 1979.
Oil on canvas.
Work referenced in the catalog raisonné of the artist. Nº 1979-001.
Presents label on the back of the Gallery L'attico Esse arte", Rome.
Signed, dated and titled on the back.
Measurements: 146 x 114 cm; 149,5 x 117 cm (frame).
EXHIBITIONS:
- 1979. Canogar. Rome, (Gallery) Esse Arte, 19 April-18 May.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- CANOGAR, Rafael: Canogar. Rome, (Gallery) Esse Arte, 1979 (Repr. color pg. 33; cit. pg. 52, nº 22)
- NIEBLA, Antonio: "Rafael Canogar, 30 years of complicity". In NIEBLA, Antonio: Rafael Canogar. Barcelona, Barcelona Gallery, 2007 (Cit. s/pág.)
- Rafael Canogar. Stands 11.244 and 11.248 (7 Internationale Kunstmesse Basel. Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, Kunstbücher). Juana Mordó Gallery. Mun Gallery. Madrid, Juana Mordó Gallery / Bilbao, Mun Gallery, 1982.

In the mid 70's, Canogar abandoned figuration, focusing his artistic experience on an abstract conception of painting, where the protagonism of the painting is revealed through the support, the chosen materials and the expressiveness of the artist's gesture through the brushstroke. His work, influenced by the socio-political situation of the country, navigated in an aesthetic language close to informalism during this stage, although without abandoning his sense of space and geometry. In fact, in 2021 in the magazine Las nueve musas the artist declared: "In my painting there is always a kind of architecture, even in informalist works there are some spatial distinctions".
Rafael Canogar trained with the painter Daniel Vázquez Díaz between 1949 and 1954. During these years he worked along the lines of the avant-garde, soon entering the path of abstraction. Co-founder of the group "El Paso" in 1957, during the fifties he developed a fully informalist work, which drifts during the sixties in a complex figuration increasingly narrative. In the sixties he achieved international recognition as a guest professor at the Milles College in California to teach the art course 1965-66, and as a guest artist at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles in 1969. Also, between 1972 and 1974 he was invited by the D.A.A.D. of Berlin as resident artist. During his mature stage, from 1975 onwards, Canogar invents a new iconography, his own and personal, which he expresses through the mask, the head, the face, as a representation of the man who loses his individuality and becomes a plastic sign. His work will also be recognized in Spain, and during the eighties he will be a member of the Advisory Council of the General Directorate of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture, of the Board of Trustees of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Heritage. Throughout his career, Canogar has held countless solo and group exhibitions. Among the personal exhibitions, several have been retrospectives, among others: Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo and Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, Museo de Arte Moderno de la Villa de Paris, Sonia Heine Foundation in Oslo, Konsthalle de Lund in Sweden, Paris Art Center, Bochum Art Museum in Germany, Istituto di Storia dell'Arte de Parma, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Fundación Casa del Cordón de Burgos, Museo de Santa Cruz de Toledo, Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, etc. Canogar has held several workshops and given countless lectures in various European and American countries, and participated in juries of international awards and biennials. He has also been awarded several prizes and distinctions, among them the Grand Prize of the Biennial of São Paulo (1971), the Grand Prize of the International Painting Triennial of Sofia (1982), the National Prize of Plastic Arts in Madrid (1982), etc. He has also been named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Artes et Lettres of France, has received the Encomienda de la Orden de Isabel la Católica, is a numerary member of the Academia de San Fernando and Doctor Honoris Causa by the U.N.E.D. Canogar is currently represented in the most important modern art collections around the world, such as the Reina Sofia Museum, the MoMA in New York, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, the Rufino Tamayo Museum in Mexico and the Chicago Art Institute, among many others.